Windsor for the Derby - The Emotional Rescue LP
(Aesthetics)
Songs of love and loss are the last things I would expect to hear on a Windsor for the Derby record. Their pervious 3 LPs have, more often than not, been mesmerizing exercises in mechanical compositions, and what little lyrics were sung or spoken could hardly be discerned behind precisely placed vocoders or a wall of arpeggiating guitars and low level keyboard drone. Their last LP, Difference and Repetition, began to break their mold, but it's this, their 4th LP, that finds Windsor for the Derby completely and comfortably bearing their skin. Almost all the songs have lyrics, and both singer/guitar players (and founding members) Dan Matz and Jason Macneely execute them in subtle and acute ways that contrast each other well. The opening track, "The Same" finds Matz soft-spoken whisper over top a bed of organs and a poignant acoustic guitar. It works well as an opener and sets the mood for the whole LP, not unlike slow Sunday mornings in the summer time, when everything is transparent. "Awkwardness" and the title track find Macneely searching for love and dealing with loss among Factory-esque guitar grooves and up beat drum-pop. "Fall of 68," a romantic and reminiscent track in the middle of the LP, has hazy piano notes and back porch acoustics which are definitely a high point of the LP, Kenny G-style sax notwithstanding. The mechanics and chilly rhythms aren't all gone though, and "Mythologies" only serves to prove that Windsor for the Derby can still carve out songs that start and stop on a dime. The closing track, "Donkey Ride," calls to mind the cover art of the LP, a dream like image of a city, and invokes the same suspended feeling. It's a decidedly quiet and simple way to close a beautifully open and emotionally loud LP.
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